Get Informed

Our web privacy measurement research has brought to light troubling privacy practices, but we encourage the public to stay informed through the following reliable media outlets. The EFF blog, and specifically the Privacy, Do Not Track, and Online Behavioral Tracking sections provide an excellent list of articles. Stanford’s Center for Internet and Society has a section of their blog focused on privacy, typically approached from a public policy perspective. The Wall Street Journal’s What They Know series covers a wide range of articles related to digital privacy.

Panopticlick can help you learn more about browser fingerprinting and see which properties of your own browser are used to fingerprint. Lightbeam (Firefox) allows you to visualize the tracking that occurs on each page you visit.

Take Action

There are many tools to protect yourself from online tracking, but no single solution is effective against all privacy and security problems.

For most users, we recommend installing Ghostery and HTTPS Everywhere. Be sure to configure Ghostery to block all categories of trackers after the first install, but be aware that this will occassionally break some sites.

More advanced users should consider the EFF’s Privacy Badger which improves upon blacklist-based tools by blocking domains based on their actions. Finally, users who believe they are particularly at risk for targeted tracking are encouraged to use the Tor Browser Bundle.

You can also take action by supporting groups which advocate for a secure, private, and fair Internet and develop tools to that end. The EFF, the ACLU and the Tor Project are non-profits that accept donations.